Silence fell, heavy and dark.
“I never said that. I never said those words. Not to him. Not to anyone. I had my moments, but I didn’t disrespect you like that,” he said finally.
“You’re saying my father lied?” I questioned.
“I’m saying your father lied, edited, or paid somebody,” he shot back. “At this point, I think we know he’s capable of all three. ’Cause I remember that day clear. There were no other dudes there. Just me and him. He never caught me saying that about you. Your parents are science and tech people. Really good, really rich ones. Who knows what they were capable of? Tomorrow, we asking him.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “My mama… she didn’t even want to hear it. She just cried and said they were doing what was best for me, that you’d already shown who you were. She said she’d never let me ‘go back to that mess’.”
Jabali swore under his breath. “Mrs. Amanda let that ride?”
“She didn’t know what they’d told me.”
“So, you thought I threw you away. And I thought you’d moved on and didn’t want me anywhere near you or your fancy new life.”
“And in the middle of that was a baby who grew up without her father,” I whispered.
The truth sat between us, ugly and simple. Tears burned my eyes again, hot and helpless.
“I kept you from her ’cause I thought I was keeping myself from chasing a man who’d already told me no, thought it let you live the life you wanted.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You made bad choices off bad information. So did I. They played us, Ky, to get what they thought was best.”
The past ten years played themselves in my mind. Late nights in Houston staring at my phone. Going home for holidays and feeling like a ghost in my own grandmother’s house. The story I’d been told—that he’d shrugged and walked away from me—had been the hurt under everything.
“I hated you. For a long time. I loved you and hated you at the same time. It was exhausting. It was easier to pretend you didn’t exist than to hold all that,” I admitted. “So, when I did come back, I didn’t mention you to Mrs. Amanda. We told her that I was hurt when I went back to Houston, that I made a bad choice and slept with an old classmate that Christmas break.”
“Because you knew she wouldn’t hide my child.”
“Because I knew she wouldn’t hide your child,” I agreed in a whisper. “And then you were just… gone.”
He looked tired. So tired.
“It was a lie, Kyleigh. I loved you. Even when I tried not to. Even when I was halfway across the world doing shit I don’t even want you to picture. I took missions to forget you, and you were still there.”
My heart jumped. “Jabali… Please don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” I whispered.
He slid forward on the bed until he was in front of me. Not touching, but close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him.
“I don’t have a reason to lie, shorty. I ain’t tryna keep things from getting bad—we already living in the worst version of whatcould happen. We lost ten years. I lost nine with my little one. There’s nothing worse than that.”
His eyes searched my face, gentle but mad all at once.
“You really think I could’ve known there was any chance you were looking for me and just turned my back?” he asked. “You know me better than that.”
I shrugged. “I used to.”
“Still do,” he countered.
We stared at each other, all those years and lies and “almosts” pressing in around us.
“I was in love with you. Back then.”
He side-eyed me. “Back then?” he repeated.
I stifled my smile. “Don’t push it.”
“You were in love with me. I was in love with you. Those things were true at the same time. That should’ve been enough to get us through some shit. But people thought we were a phase,” he said.
